Of Fools and Rabbit Holes
by coerulus
Summary: After Sabrina leaves him at the altar, Bradley has some second thoughts on what 'true love' really is.


Falling. It's a sensation so many fear, but so many misunderstand. Falling, be it on a rollercoaster ride, down the rabbit hole, or in love. Do we fear the rush of wind past our ears, the tingling feeling in our stomachs, the feeling of weightlessness as gravity gently takes hold of our bodies and draws us into the core of the earth? Some of us do, but what we all fear is what's waiting for us at the bottom of our descent, the impact of our body against the jagged rocks that lie below us, waiting for us to meet them.

Love, a thing, a figment of naïve humans' imaginations, a combination of serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and other chemicals addling our brains and turning it to mush. It doesn't hurt to love someone. It sends a rush of happiness and well-being into ourselves, yet why do we say it hurts to fall in love?

These thoughts swim sluggishly through his mind, moving quietly like the steadiness of the river snaking through the mud. Blue eyes stare back at him in the mirror as he coats his jaw in shaving cream, deftly and emotionlessly. He shaves, straightens his tie, walks out the door where the last lingering scents of her perfume dissipate in the air.

He goes to work, like usual, quietly bids good morning to his coworkers, sips the burning heat of his coffee. Even the coffee is laced with the taste of her lipstick, dark and fake. Ghosts of her wink at him in the steam coming from the cup, billowing out and fading in the chill of the winter air.

The rabbit hole, he remembers, was a curious thing. Bright at the entrance, but progressively getting darker the further he fell, and the floating chairs and clocks and knickknacks provided no help to his plight. And after the fall was a strange land, one that was unnavigable and had no exits, at least, no obvious ones. Alice found her way out, he tries to console himself, but to no avail.

Yet Alice found her way out within the space of an afternoon.

He can't escape his Wonderland, his twisted, sick Wonderland that's turned from cream and azure to blood and gunmetal, not for a while.

Is it just nature, he wonders, to be allured by something so curious, and to immerse yourself in it so that you won't be able to get out? A cigarette here. A 'relaxing' glass of wine there. The singular slash of a blade, coming off the skin with fire-bright jewels clinging to its edge.

He remembers the day they met. Warm, summery day, the taste of sugar and caramel and ice cream on their tongues. And the day she left him, another warm, summery day, to commemorate the day that the gnarled hands of Fate pushed them together.

They started out fine. And he ignored the few forced kisses, the empty-sounding words, the listlessness; he chalked them up to bad days at work and the like. Each day he fell more in love with her and she did too. Until she didn't, and then he stopped too, and only then he knew how he burnt himself out with his love for this girl, this girl who loved him but loved someone else even more.

The elevator dings brightly, and the doors part. He walks out, taking the same path to his cubicle every day, treading in the footsteps that used to spring with delight every morning. He catches a glimpse of the blonde hair, which ducks just a few seconds too late. He resents the gold, resents it silently and broodingly, the flash that he saw just a week ago clad in white, crystal blue eyes staring into the oceanic blue eyes; they were too similar. They weren't identical, and they weren't complementary either.

He sips his coffee, watches as the golden girl talks on her phone to someone unknown, a beautiful stranger, perhaps. An ache throbs somewhere inside him, dull and sharp at the same time, paradoxically. He listens to her voice, lilting, almost, and even though he can't see her eyes or maybe a telltale curve of her lips he can tell she's in love with whoever she's talking to on the other end. It looks and sounds so easy, so painlessly smooth. And then he realizes.

Fool, he scolds himself. Falling down the stupid rabbit hole doesn't hurt. It only hurts after you've stopped falling, when you sit back and assess your wounds, and realize how much they really sting and burn and ache.

* * *

 **Okay, okay, this was really scary for me to write. It's my first time writing almost all of a story in metaphor, and I'm literally terrified to post this because it's so different and I don't even know if it'll hold up to my standards of writing, because I have never written anything so metaphorical before. And it's so short too, I can't tell if I've got my meaning across and all that. Yeesh. But I can't learn if I never do anything, so...this is it. Sorry you had to go through this rant, I had a panic attack today and it's taking longer than usual for me to calm down.**

 **Anyways, sorry for filling up that space with my emotional garbage. Hope you liked that story, please leave a favorite and a review.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN SISTERS GRIMM. MICHAEL BUCKLEY DOES.**


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